It’s 6:40 AM and almost time for me to go out and walk. However, the thermometer (which is hard to see in the dark) appears to say something a little under 20, and Scott’s computer has the weather page up, which says it’s currently 13,but given the wind feels like 3. I think I’d better get started bundling up!
My friend, Danette, lives with her missionary family in Niger (sub-Saharan Africa). She has a blog where she writes the most wonderful, interesting, and amazing posts. BUT, she and her family had been in the States for the past six months, getting their oldest son situated in college, visiting their family, friends, and partners, raising support for their ministry, and vacationing.
Before this trip, she used to post maybe every week or two, but in the past nine months, her blog has been very lonely. I knew that once she was back in Niger and semi-settled, she’d resume writing, so I’ve been checking her blog every few days. Guess what? DANETTE POSTED!!! Join me in enjoying her wonderful writing here.
Most of the rest of my family is at a Super Bowl party tonight. We normally have group on Sunday night, but the Worleys were going to be out of town on Sunday for a birthday celebration with extended family, so we moved the group to Monday night this week. That would be tomorrow night. With the group thus on Monday rather than Sunday, we were able to accept the Super Bowl party invite from the Duncans that we had previously declined (due to the group).
I chose to stay home, for several reasons:
1. My default nature is introversion, and I need times alone to “re-charge” my emotional battery. I have learned that I need to pace myself when it comes to groups of people.
2. The Duncans – whom I like very much – happen to have cats. I could take enough allergy med to keep my face from puffing up, but then I would be a walking zombie, have difficulty staying awake, and probably need to use an inhaler for a few days to get over it.
3. I had some projects that I really wanted and needed to get to, and I wanted to use those four hours to get them done.
So the gang just returned, and from what I can tell, the Colts won and everyone had a good time. Oh, wait. ANDREW told me the Colts won, but Scott just corrected me. Evidently New Orleans won and everyone had a good time. (Andrew said that he thought New Orleans was the Colts.) Well. I guess he has his mom’s knowledge of football and its teams.
I, on the other hand, learned how to change the pictures on my digital frame and did so with a vengeance. I also prepped more than two weeks of academics for Andrew, printed a week of checklists, and loaded his school box for tomorrow. I did not get the family library books re-shelved, but that will be a fun little task for another day.
The grayer and wiser among my readers may remember the commercial where the short guy scurries around saying, “It’s time to make the donuts.” Well, in our house, it’s time to make the bread. I will go do that, then go to bed, and when I wake up, there might be some SNOW on the ground!
Ah, the wonders of the internet. I looked up the Branson Convention Center’s calendar of events and learned that the Conklin Company (a network marketing organization) has 1000 people in town for a convention February 1-7. Hence the huge and boisterous gang at The Olive Garden last night.
Conklin is the last name of one of my uncles, but I doubt he was in town. It seems that the Conklin Company specializes in outdoorsy and farming type offerings like “crop management, animal supplements, health & home, lawn care, roofing systems, sealants & coatings, and vehicle products.
Now we know.
Who’da thunk? Last night, Scott and I went to Olive Garden on a date. We like to eat there because the atmosphere is nice, the food is good, and we can split an appetizer, a salad, an entree and sometimes still have room to split a dessert (as we did last night – although note that the apple crostata, while tasty, cannot compare to the white chocolate raspberry cheesecake).
We went to The Olive Garden a month ago, and the place was totally dead. We usually have to wait 30 or so minutes, but that night (I think for the first time ever) we walked straight to a table and ordered. Not so last night. When we pulled up around 7:00 PM, the parking lot was FULL. We had to drive in circles and wait for someone to pull out. The lobby was crammed full of folks, and we waited some 45 minutes to be seated.
We like a leisurely meal, so we were not upset when our waiter said that the kitchen was running behind. It all worked out fine and we enjoyed a delicious meal, but throughout the evening, I was trying to figure out what on earth caused so many people to hit The Olive Garden on a Friday night smack dab in the middle of off-season.
As we were leaving, in the restroom I met a staff member straightening things up after the supper rush, and I mentioned to her that there were a lot more people there than we had expected. She said, “Us, too!! But there is a show, and also a convention at the Hilton. There are 600 people there, and some of them came up here for dinner.”
Well, that solved the mystery, except that now I am curious about what kind of convention drew 600 people to Branson in the dead of winter.
That’s what Josiah calls it, but the technical name is subconjunctival hemorrhage.
A few days ago, off and on throughout the entire day, Andrew KEPT telling me that something was in my eye, that I needed to get that thing out of my eye, and that my eye looked really bad. Since this is the same kid that screams hysterically when we’re driving down the road (not because we’re about to hit something, but because he saw a “cool” car), I took it with a grain of salt – meaning that I completely ignored him.
However, when Josiah also began commenting on my eye, I decided to go take a look. Sure enough, in the far corner of my right eye was a bright red blotch. Hmmm… I didn’t feel anything, and I could see just fine, so I went online and learned that I had evidently (and unknowingly) experienced a subconjunctival hemorrhage. Interesting. No one had punched me, and I certainly didn’t recall any incident with my eye, but it turns out that although a subconjunctival hemorrhage looks really bad, it’s actually no big deal at all.
It seems that the blood vessels in the eye are susceptible to breaking, and coughing, straining, or who-knows-what causes them to break, the result is just like a bruise anywhere else. The initial bleeding is bright red and localized, and over the next 24 hours it spreads somewhat. Then, over a week or two, the blood is gradually absorbed and the color changes from red to orange to yellow and eventually disappears. The reason “normal” bruises go from black to blue to green is because we see them through skin which has pigment. The “skin” or covering of the eye has no pigment, so the coloring is more true.
The outer half of my eye now appears extremely bloodshot – although not nearly as dramatic as it was – and last night while we were playing bridge, Josiah dubbed it “the blood ball.” That made me laugh, and I said I thought it would be a great title for a blog post. He asked me again this morning if I had posted about the blood ball, so now I can accurately report to him that I have followed through.
Not only does she grind me into the dust at Lexulous, but her town is expecting 24 inches of snow tomorrow!!! And they’ve already had about six inches. The forecast there is for 24 (some reports say up to 40) inches of snow, with high winds, causing visibility to be less than a quarter of a mile.
She is very thankful that her on-campus job is in an office, but she really feels for the students who work on the grounds crew. Playing in a blizzard would be one thing; working in it would be a whole different thing.
In any case, classes are already canceled for Friday, so maybe she’ll have time for me to try to beat her at Lexulous. = )
Yesterday, I crafted a really pithy post about my never ending ability to lose to Katie in Lexulous. It was quite well-written (if I do say so myself), and, I believe, worth the extra time I spent refining it. However, as I went to post it, wordpress informed me that I wasn’t logged in (?!?!?), and I am sad to report that all that luscious verbiage was lost.
I didn’t have the time or inclination to re-create that post, but in my quest to post frequently, I am motivated to at least write something this morning.
What I have to say now is that when I went out to walk, it was lightly raining. The rain immediately turned to sleet, which five minutes later turned to SNOW!!! I was so happy to get to walk in the snow for nearly half an hour, and even though these particular flakes aren’t expected to stick or accumulate, I am greatly enjoying their arrival on that planet.
For perhaps the first time in his life, Scott is now officially normal. He saw the orthopedic doctor for his six-week follow-up, and he was told he can now do “anything normal.” This would include walking without crutches, traveling, driving a standard (hallelujah!), and everything else “normal” people do, but no sports.
His left hip is still somewhat uncomfortable, and his left knee is still quite painful. In addition, the knee won’t straighten out completely, and the doc indicated that this is a significant problem which must be corrected immediately. Now that the magic six weeks have transpired, it’s time to do “gentle physical therapy on the hip and aggressive physical therapy on the knee.” This is expected to hurt a lot. One of the therapy providers I called referred to it is “medieval torture.” Hmmm.
Physical therapy begins tomorrow, but in the meantime, Scott is utilizing the locally available and very inexpensive option of sitting on the floor and having Josiah push down on the knee to try to get it straight. I have not personally observed the procedure, but I can testify that it results in unique and interesting sound effects – none of which come from Josiah.
I’ve never had a normal husband before, so this will be a new experience all around.
I have decided that it’s a good thing we have home group in our house every two weeks, because it means that I am FORCED to clean things up at least that often. Group starts in 15 minutes, and at this exact moment, I can claim that most portions of our home are clean enough for guests. Now we just need to keep it this way. The probabilities of that are not exceedingly high.
